How Trey Cunningham Cleared His Biggest Hurdle And Got Faster
It takes Trey Cunningham 13 seconds to demolish ten hurdles. That’s the exact time he clocked to win the Paris Diamond League, a testament to his explosive power on the track. But for years, he faced a much bigger obstacle, one that couldn’t be timed with a stopwatch. In the summer of 2024, the professional hurdler made the decision to come out publicly as gay, and since then, he has found a new level of speed.
After a tough 2024 Olympic Trials, something shifted for Cunningham. He returned to competition with a renewed focus that produced immediate, blistering results. At Miami’s Grand Slam Track meet, he dominated the short hurdles and set a new personal best in the 110-metre hurdles. He then equalled that record in Paris. So what changed?
“It was for me, just to be one hundred percent authentic, transparent, and not holding back any part of me,” Cunningham explained to Cero magazine. He credits his coach for reinforcing the idea. “My coach was really big on this, like, ‘You have to be totally confident in yourself and whatever that means to you on that track.’” That confidence is proving to be the key.
He was the self-described nerd who fell in love with track.
Cunningham’s story doesn’t follow the typical athlete script. Growing up in Winfield, Alabama, he was a self-confessed “nerd” who preferred books and video games. That was until he followed a cousin to track practice in the seventh grade. “I fell in love with it,” he says, adding a detail that foreshadowed his career. “Also not the typical track story, I picked hurdles. You could say I do love throwing myself at solid objects for some reason at a high rate of speed.”
His talent earned him a place at Florida State University, where he didn’t just run. He completed a bachelor’s in public relations and then a master’s in sports management. His thesis topic was athlete burnout, an issue he understood intimately.
Even champions need a support system…
Despite winning a silver medal at the 2022 World Championships, Cunningham was exhausted. “I was sitting in my sports psychologist’s office and I was like, ‘I think I’m burnt out,’ and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I think you are too.’” The immense pressure of a sport measured in milliseconds had taken its toll.
But quitting wasn’t an option, thanks to the people around him. “I’ve got a good support team around me. They believed in me and didn’t really let me quit when I wanted to,” he admits. This support allowed him to rediscover his passion for the sport. “I think finding that beauty in the process again was a big part of this year.”
Coming out was for himself and for a kid in some other town.
While his close friends and family already knew, Cunningham’s public announcement in The New York Times was a deliberate choice. It was about making his truth real and visible. He also felt a responsibility to challenge the outdated idea that top-tier male athletes can’t be openly gay.
At DNA, we know that representation can change lives. Cunningham seems to agree. “It took me a while to be okay with being gay, and that was the other reason,” he told Cero. “I still feel like some kids feel that way. They feel like they have to come out, so I did it for a kid like me in some other town.” He knows that a young person seeing his success might find the courage to be themselves.
Now 26, Cunningham has his sights set on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics with a simple, audacious goal, to be the “best hurdler ever.” Whether on the track or possibly pursuing a PhD in sports psychology later, he is moving forward without hiding any part of himself. He’s proving that living honestly isn’t a disadvantage. For him, it’s the only way to run.
